MusicMap’s ‘Soundscape’ series is a brilliant way to keep up with local music scenes and global trends. Every few weeks, the people behind this amazing platform visit a different country and ask someone familiar with the scene to serve up a mix of the finest local sounds…

“Following our recent trips to Peru, India and Mexico, this month we’re visiting Lebanon for our first Soundscape from the Middle East. Our guide this time is Beirut-based DJ, promoter and producer Ziad Nawfal, co-founder of ground-breaking independent label Ruptured and managing director of Irtijal, the country’s first experimental music festival. Ziad Nawfal has spent his career championing independent Lebanese music via his ‘Ruptures’ and ‘Decalages’ shows on Radio Lebanon, so we knew we were in for a treat with his Soundscape mix…”

Listen below:

“It turns out that it’s pretty difficult to summarise Beirut musically in an hour,” Ziad admits. “Especially for someone who’s been working amidst this scene for so long. I chose to include artists who are all currently active, with the one exception of Scrambled Eggs, the first band I worked with back in 2006. I also chose to focus on more experimental and leftfield forms of music, whether electronic, rock, or folk, and in the process many artists whom I’m fond of had to be cast aside. Heartfelt apologies to those. This is a very personal take on what Beirut represents for me, musically. Sometimes pretty, sometimes ugly, often difficult, always challenging. I hope you enjoy this mix!”

On celebrating cold tobacco and cheap aftershave, eternal sunsets and surfer suicides, Film Noir and Thomas Pynchon, and the mighty power of the drone…

The Bunny Tylers is a drone/ambient group from Beirut, Lebanon, whose core consists of guitarists Charbel Haber (Scrambled Eggs, Malayeen, Johnny Kafta’s Anti-Vegetarian Orchestra) and Fadi Tabbal (The Incompetents, Under the Carpet, Safar), often joined on stage by Pascal Semerdjian and Marwan Tohmé from folk band Postcards. Operating firmly outside of any musical trends, at the heart of Bunny Tylers is the desire to tie musical loose ends and threads derived as much from the two men’s solo records, as a very tangible teenage dream of remaking My Bloody Valentine’s “Loveless”.

The duo initially came together in 2013 to compose and record incidental music for Nadim Tabet and Karine Wehbe’s video essay “Summer of 91”. They began exploring different guitar bowing techniques, set amidst a loose and free-flowing musical frame, away from rigid compositional stratagems. Preoccupied with texture rather than finite structure, guitar drones and intricate pedal-work set the ambience and mood for Haber’s lyrics of self-reflection and existential bleakness. Love stories indeed, albeit ones engrossed with the inexorable progress of the Grim Reaper.

The Bunny Tylers’ first album, “Glitches & Drones 2013-2016”, was released by Ruptured in 2016. The duo’s second album was recorded by Benoit de Villeneuve (from Team Ghost and a collaborator of M83) in Paris in the summer of 2017. The CD version of the album was released during the 2017 edition of Wickerpark Festival, while LP and digital versions will be available starting January 2018.

The 7th edition of this outstanding Lebanese festival, set on the shores of the coastal city of Batroun, will feature concerts by Alko B., The Bunny Tylers, Kinematik and Who Killed Bruce Lee, among others.

Ruptured, Metropolis and Goethe Institute Lebanon collaborate on this newly commissioned cinemix for Curtis Bernhardt’s classic film from 1929, featuring three of Lebanon’s most talented experimental musicians.

Later in October 2017Fadi Tabbal: Museum of Disappearing Buildings
Album release by Beacon Sound and Ruptured

Lebanese guitarist and producer Fadi Tabbal‘s breathtaking 2nd solo record, initially self-released on CD in 2015, is made available on vinyl by Ruptured and USA-based label Beacon Sound.

The BUNNY TYLERS is a collaboration between Charbel Haber (Scrambled Eggs, Malayeen, Johnny Kafta Anti-Vegetarian Orchestra) and Fadi Tabbal (The Incompetents, Under The Carpet, Safar), aimed at the exploration of different guitar bowing techniques and celebrating the smell of cold tobacco, cheap aftershave, eternal sunsets and surfer suicides.

They will perform at Ono The Music Hub on the occasion of the release of the Bunny Tylers’ first album, “Glitches & Drones 2013-2016”, for Lebanese alternative label Ruptured.

Musician, producer and sound engineer, known for his numerous contributions to Beirut’s alternative music scene by way of the specialized studio he opened in 2006, Tunefork. Tabbal’s work as an engineer at Tunefork has secured its reputation as one of the most prominent studios in Beirut; the majority of the city’s alternative acts have passed through its doors.

Fadi is a member of several Lebanese bands, including rock groups The Incompetents and Bunny Tylers, as well as experimental trio Under the Carpet. He collaborates frequently with singer/songwriter Youmna Saba, folk bands Safar and Ramly, and is a guest player on albums by oriental duo Praed and folk singer Sandmoon, among others. As a solo artist, he has released three albums entitled “On the Rooftop Looking Up” (Self-released 2013), “Museum of Disappearing Buildings” (Self-released 2015) and “How’s Annie” (Ruptured, 2016).
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// ABOUT CHARBEL HABER

Lebanese rock musician, performer and composer, straddling the uneasy genres of experimental post-rock and ambient soundscapes. Co-founder and member of longstanding Lebanese post-rock group Scrambled Eggs, Haber’s work encompasses a wide range of disciplines and styles including film, video art and theater, both as a solo artist and as a member of Scrambled Eggs, Malayeen and the Johnny-Kafta Anti Vegetarian Orchestra collective.

As a solo artist, he has collaborated with various visual artists and composed music for a variety of film and theater performances, both in his native Lebanon and abroad. Haber has released over a dozen albums with Scrambled Eggs (for labels Incognito, Ruptured and Johnny Kafta’s Kids Menu), two solo albums (for Al-Maslakh and Discrepant), as well as several one-off collaborations over a variety of supports including vinyl, CD and cassette.
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